In May 2021 I signed up for the first of my 8 participations in Tiago Forte's BASB.

Like many others, my main concern was to organize my digital chaos. I'm currently participating in 2 book clubs about his first book. One of the ideas that comes up recurrently is whether PARA is too simplistic and needs an extra layer of structure.

No need for greater complexity if your production machine works in a simpler way.

9 quotes from the BASB book on the complexity of PARA

1️⃣ PARA can handle it all, regardless of your profession or field (...): it organizes information based on how actionable it is, not what kind of information it is.

2️⃣ Instead of requiring tons of time meticulously organizing your digital world, PARA guides you in quickly sorting your ideas according to what really matters: your goals. One of the biggest temptations with organizing is to get too perfectionistic, treating the process of organizing as an end in itself. There is something inherently satisfying about order, and it's easy to stop there instead of going on to develop and share our knowledge. We need to always be wary of accumulating so much information that we spend all our time managing it, instead of putting it to use in the outside world.

3️⃣ The promise of PARA is that it changes "getting organized" from a herculean, never-ending endeavor into a straightforward task to get over with so you can move on to more important work.

4️⃣ You are always trying to place a note or file not only where it will be useful, but where it will be useful the soonest.

5️⃣ “…the goal is to take note of what moves your projects forward, not get a PhD in notetaking.”

6️⃣ Instead of organizing ideas according to where they come from, I recommend organizing them according to where they are going. The true test of whether a piece of knowledge is valuable is not whether it is perfectly organized and neatly labeled, but whether it can have an impact on someone or something that matters to you. PARA isn’t a filing system; it’s a production system.

7️⃣ We have to minimize the time we spend filing, labeling, tagging, and maintaining.

8️⃣ "Move quickly and touch lightly" instead. Look for the path of least resistance and make progress in short steps, don't make oganizing your Second Brain into yet another heavy obligation. Ask yourself: "What is the smallest, easiest step I can take that moves me in the right driection?".

9️⃣ (...) you never have to worry about getting it perfect, or having it finished.

Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior. —Dee Hock